"That"s not an explanation, man."
"I can"t explain it! Something"s wrong with the bridge and I don"t know what. My lord." His cheeks stung with parallel cuts that beaded bright blood every time he changed expression. "I"m not a ... I"m not like her."
"I"m surrounded by idiots." Gerhard straightened up. This expedition wasn"t going the way he wanted. "Get back on your horse, huntmaster, and try and stay out of my sight for the rest of the day."
Buber slunk off to where his mount was being held by a tiny blonde girl, and the prince looked around for the next person to shout at. His gaze alighted on Allegretti, and his mouth tightened into a humourless smile.
"Allegretti. Ride to the middle of the bridge and then stop."
"My lord? Signore Buber says that it is impossible." The Italian made no sign that he would comply with the order. Instead, he lifted down his hat and inspected it for debris, brushing at the felt with his long fingers.
"Buber is an old woman."
"That is entirely possible, my lord, but he may also be correct regarding the bridge. I would advise we pay attention to his hard-won knowledge." He picked off some imagined speck of dirt and replaced the hat on his head. "The man who ignores it risks being made to look the fool."
"Which is why you"re going to ride across the bridge. You, not me."
"As you wish, my lord, although trying every horse we have seems both imprudent and unnecessary. Either we all cross, or none of us cross, unless you wish to dilute your forces further."
"Signore Allegretti," started Gerhard, but to forestall any further conversation, Allegretti spurred his horse"s flanks and set off at a canter. By the time he reached the bridge, he was at a gallop.
It was almost as if he"d ridden into a wall, the horse stopped that suddenly. Digging all four feet into the dirt, it slid to a halt, while Allegretti did not. He flew, having slipped his feet from the stirrups moments before. He almost had time to wave at Felix, before curling into a ball and bouncing on his shoulder and back.
He rolled to a stop. His horse backed away from the bridge, then turned and headed down the line of wagons, ears back and tail up.
Gerhard watched the Italian lie still on the ground for an exaggerated length of time, then finally unfold himself and bat the dust from his clothes. He retrieved his hat and started to walk back.
"Anything else, my lord?"
He ought to try for himself, but he wasn"t going to. Allegretti"s demonstration was proof enough. The d.a.m.n fop could have killed himself, or his horse.
"Get me the, the ... hexmaster." From what she"d told him, she knew nothing about stone forming. And that was how the bridge had been made, extruded from molten rock and shaped into a usable form, five hundred years earlier. Perhaps a proper hexmaster would know what was wrong, but this adept, this woman?
She was all he had, so he had to ask her.
"Tell me why, and whether, you can do something about this, this mummers" farce," he said.
She looked at him, her face neutral. "My lord."
At least she had the wit to dismount first, and hand her reins to one of the knights, before she approached the bridge.
She looked carefully at the runes on the bridge"s parapet, walked cautiously up the first part of the rise, and even managed a little series of jumps, her feet stamping down as she landed. She walked back and stood in front of the prince"s horse.
"I know what the problem is," she said.
"And?" sighed Gerhard. The Teutons were getting further away every moment they stood there, on the wrong side of the river. He needed to strike back at them, hard and fast, so that he could return to Juvavum and have a long, not entirely cordial chat with the Master of the White Order.
"The bridge has vanished. It"s no longer there."
He looked at the bridge, at its black solidity, then at her. "Are you, are you all, out of your minds?"
"The bridge exists as an act of faith only. Animals do not have that capacity, so they think they are being led across a river on nothing but a ribbon of air. So, naturally, they refuse." She rested her hands on her hips and looked across to Simbach.
Gerhard dismounted and went to stand next to her. The bridge, the stone, the arch. It looked solid enough.
"It"s like what you said last night, isn"t it?"
"The magic that keeps it there is an echo. We remember what it was, so it still appears to us. When our faith in it to carry us across fails, so will the bridge. Poof. Gone."
"That"s..."
"The way it works, I"m afraid. We never really understood where magic came from, only that it was there and we could manipulate the world using it."
"But you still can."
"Perhaps I just believe in magic more than everyone else." She stooped down and picked up a pebble, which she threw underarm high into the air. "The stone has no memory, no experience, no expectations."
They watched as the dirty yellow pebble fell onto the bridge and vanished. A moment later, a ring of ripples formed beneath the arch.
"It doesn"t know that the bridge should be there. We give the lie meaning because of our belief." She dusted her hands clean.
Gerhard shook his head. "This ... this whole thing. It"s mad."
The adept twisted a strand of her hair between her fingertips. "I take it there are other ways across the river."
"Not here. Downstream. There"s both a ford, and a bridge a real bridge at Obernberg. About fifteen miles away." Gerhard started to rub his face, and again encountered the cold chain-mail that protected his palm. "Farm tracks. It"ll take the rest of the day to get there."
"The farmers use them. Why should it slow us down?"
"The last thing I expected of the Order: a practical sorcerer." He half drew his sword to see whether it still had the dark shine about the blade. "Is this it then? Is this how it begins?"
"So it appears, my lord."
Gerhard slammed his sword back and looked around pensively. "It"s a strange sort of Ragnarok. I expected more, well, giant wolves and fire."
She was startled. "Why mention Ragnarok, my lord?"
"I don"t know. Perhaps if the G.o.ds bring magic, their pa.s.sing takes it away. Do you believe in the G.o.ds, Adept? We celebrate the festivals and offer the required sacrifices, because we"re good Germans, but how many of us see Ostara as just an excuse for a ma.s.sive p.i.s.s-up and a chance to slip one to the neighbour"s wife?"
He wondered what the Order"s att.i.tude to the G.o.ds was. Did they encourage worship, tolerate it, or try and beat it out of the novices? It wasn"t anything that he"d ever been in a position to ask before.
"I have no opinion to offer," she said. "If there are G.o.ds, then I"ve never met one. I would suggest that we turn back, though. That"s as much advice as I feel qualified to give."
"We"re not running away." He wheeled his horse around, and caused her to skip back. "Carinthia does not run away."
"No one is suggesting that we run, my lord. But if this is happening here, what"s happening back in Juvavum?"
He stared down at her, and growled. "I can only deal with one f.u.c.king thing at a time, Adept. Go and ride with Buber. Women together." Then he raised his voice: "East. We go east."
He kicked down hard with his spurs and his horse clattered its hooves on the stone via, before finding enough grip to head in the new direction. His earls followed, and then the infantry. The wagons were laboriously turned and set on their trundling, one-speed way.
Gerhard glanced behind him once to check that all was in order, and didn"t look back after that.
He had the river to his left, and it ran more or less directly east. The road was what he expected: beaten soil and stones. More than good enough for the wagons. He rode on in splendid isolation, and the column straggled out.
It started to rain: slowly at first, no more than mist in the wind as the clouds above churned and darkened, but it grew to become a steady drizzle, cold and uncomfortable. The road beneath him grew sticky, and puddles appeared in the potholes on the compacted surface.
"My lord," called a voice, and in turning to see who it was, Gerhard was forced to twist his head into the bl.u.s.tery rain.
"What is it, man?"
Reinhardt, swathed in a waxed cloak with only his head visible, ran up beside him. "The wagonmaster begs for a moment"s rest. His men are finding the conditions difficult."
"Difficult?"
"Yes, my lord." Reinhardt, already apprehensive, lowered his head further. "The wagons..."
"May Sleipnir s.h.i.t on the wagons." It had rained for barely an hour, and already they were whining, thinking of their beds and their beer. Meanwhile, the Teutons were ahead, pressing on with their rude horse-drawn carts. They could be crossing the Enn by now. So he came to a decision. "I"ve got new orders."
"My lord?"
"Those on horse will ride on to Obernberg, and scout the land ahead. Your spearmen will help the wagons get to us by afternoon. And when I say help, they"ll put their shoulders to the wheels and push the f.u.c.king things all the way if they have to. Clear?"
The man knew better than to argue. "My lord."
Gerhard clicked his heels again, and his horse responded, breaking into a trot for a few lengths, before subsiding back into a walk.
He could hear what was going on behind him, though his helmet m.u.f.fled some of the sounds. Barked orders, the rattle of tack, the stamping and splashing of horses" hooves against the ground.
They were doing what he"d told them to do. Anything else would be unthinkable: literally, because he couldn"t genuinely think of a reason for anyone not to obey, and obey instantly.
The magic, though. He did think about the magic, and how the bridge at Simbach was real enough to take the weight of a man, but not a horse. He didn"t understand that, and didn"t accept it either. Perhaps it meant, at least, that the Teutons couldn"t double back and cross the river there, but there were other considerations.
Everything he knew depended on the working of magic. His whole kingdom, down to the very last penny, relied on some sorcery somewhere along the process. The river flowed as the seasons dictated, but the barges that plied its broad reaches were driven by tattooed bargemasters who willed them upstream and controlled them down it. The whole network of trade on the inland rivers the Donau, the Rhein, the Volga would simply grind to a halt without magic.
And speaking of grinding: fields of golden grain didn"t plant themselves in the soil in spring, or mill themselves into flour come harvest. The goods from the farms and the forests rattled their way to markets on wagons like those on the road behind him, ones that didn"t need a horse and could travel tirelessly day and night forever.
Even the lights in the city"s squares. Even the fountains.
Where were his hexmasters?
He almost stopped. He almost turned around and ordered everyone back to Juvavum, where he could take counsel and question his wizards and work out what to do next without having the smell of damp horse a.s.saulting his royal nostrils and the uncaring rain running down his back in a small, cold trickle.
But Carinthia didn"t retreat. Moreover, it didn"t know how to retreat. It only knew how to advance, an irresistible, inexorable force that others either ran from or were consumed by. When Carinthia went to war, it rolled across the countryside like one of the magicked wagons. All it needed was to be steered this way and that, preferably directly at the enemy, and, as history had proved time and again, it was enough.
When they did turn for home, it was because they had been utterly victorious and their foes totally vanquished. Those who were not scattered after the battle had been annihilated during it. How to lead a harried force safely away without loss wasn"t in any of the stories he"d been told.
He had no wish to be the start of any such tale, so he summoned his nerve and remembered his ancestors. Three hundred horse: it was barely worthy of the name "army". He had his spears, his knights, and the adept. If he shied from a fight now, his name would be synonymous with cowardice. Not Gerhard Stoutheart, Gerhard Strongarm, Gerhard Widowmaker yes, he liked the sound of that last one but Gerhard Two-minds, Gerhard p.i.s.sblood, Gerhard Tiny-c.o.c.k. Those, he liked not so much.
It was raining hard now, a constant, heavy blatter of water in fat drops that clattered against his plate. There was some ice in each, just for the extra discomfort.
His was royal blood, the same blood that had flowed in the veins of Alaric. What was rain? What was cold? His character was stronger than that.
Gerhard slowed his horse and turned it so that it walked diagonally across the road. His earls, heads bowed against the weather, looked a sorry sight, and he was ashamed for them. They were his n.o.bles. One of them was his son. The only one of them who seemed to shrug the conditions aside was the witch.
"Straighten up in your saddles, you sacks of s.h.i.t," he shouted, venting his frustration and uncertainty. "You are Carinthia, yet you ride like condemned men. f.u.c.k the weather. Laugh at it. Scorn it. Mock it. The Teutons? Barbarians. Weak, ill-fed, ill-trained, ill-disciplined children. What do you fight for? The handful of gold florins you"ll get for every one of their heads you lay at my feet? Or for your own honour? Because I"ll tell you which is more precious to me."
He walked his horse in a tight circle. "Any of you lack the pa.s.sion to defend Carinthia"s virginity? Any of you who"d stand by and let its soil and its treasure be deflowered by Teutonic c.o.c.ks? No? Good."
They looked back at him, those who dared. Others looked anywhere but.
"We"ve men to kill. Let"s do it quickly."
17.
Buber was still smarting from Gerhard"s rebuke, and he rode at the back of the column of horse with the other disgraced: Allegretti, who didn"t seem at all bothered, and the hexmaster, who did.
Gerhard may be a prince, but she was a sorcerer. If she"d been a man, she wouldn"t have been spoken to like that. From the look on her face, she both knew and resented that fact.
What if she simply refused to perform when the time came? Buber had come to realise that the outcome of the whole expedition depended entirely on her, and the prospect of his lord and master screaming and begging for her to cast one simple spell to save them all while she smiled inscrutably and folded her arms gave him a vicarious thrill.
The prince could hardly have her killed for disobeying orders. In fact, and the mere thought twisted in his guts, all she had to do was to change sides. Here was Gerhard, here was Felix, here were most of his earls those able to be mustered, at least.
The prince was right in one thing: Carinthia was here, and it suddenly looked vulnerable.
"Mistress?" he ventured.
"What?" She didn"t even bother to look at him.
"Can I ... can I ask you a question?"
"I suppose so. It pa.s.ses the time."
"What will you do?"
Allegretti looked askance at Buber from under the dripping brim of his hat. Buber ignored him.
"I will discharge my duty to the prince. As always." She wiped water from her eyebrows, and used her long fingers to clear the rest of her face. She looked at him now, and something like a smile flickered across her face. "Why? Did you think that because he wouldn"t listen to me, I"d get angry with him?"
Buber shrugged. "I suppose so."